Sunday, January 1, 2012

Congress Seeks Legal Framework for Internet Censorship

[Excerpted] "Two bills aimed at
establishing a legal framework for government and corporate censorship of the
Internet are expected to be discussed in January when Congress returns from its
winter break.

The first is the so-called PIPA, or Protect IP Act, introduced
to the US Senate on May 12 by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy. The second is
the Stop Online Piracy Act, known as SOPA. This bill was introduced to the House
of Representatives on October 26, 2011 by Republican Lamar Smith. The bills are
the latest bipartisan attempt to give the government the ability to shut down
the Internet or parts of the Internet..."

Majia here: I think these 2 bills are very important and we should be extremely wary. Passage of these bills will make it easy to censor bloggers and other "alternative" news sites.

Washington's Blogprovides a good summary of the criticisms against SOPA

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).